


Hell Doesn't Send Rude Notes

by Fyre



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dark, Hallucinations, Hell, Hell Trauma, Mind Games, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:42:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: You don't want to get on the wrong side of Hell.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	Hell Doesn't Send Rude Notes

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something creepy and it turned into something dark and cruel instead. Proceed with caution.

Black walls glistened in the darkness. No light, Crowley thought, staring around. How the hell were they glistening?

Down the hall, the Dark Prince had hissed, the whisper like nails down his spine. You’ll know the door.

He didn’t ask how. They wouldn’t’ve said.

Down the hall, find the door.

Wasn’t for a good reason. Never was down here.

Down the halls. Walls sheeting with wet darkness. Didn’t want to know what that was either. Metallic and cloying in the air. Sharp and bitter and burning. Wet underfoot. Soft in places. Sharp in other. Sometimes, something cracked. Like dry sticks. Like bone.

Don’t look down. Don’t look around, just walk on, walk on, find the door.

It wasn’t there and then it was, stark and white and pure and bright.

Wrong, he knew. Wrong, he felt. Wrong, he would’ve screamed.

Would’ve.

Could’ve.

If he hadn’t gone from one side to the other on legs that weren’t under his control.

________________________________

The bookshop shone safe and warm on the corner.

Crowley’s legs barely held him as he ran in, the bell jangling. “Angel!” he croaked, stumbling against the pillar.

Aziraphale came from the back. Aziraphale but…

but

but

but

Angel curled his hand, manifested a sword that blazed heavenly bright.

“No,” Crowley moaned. “Nonononono…”

The blade swung down like the wrath of Her.

And–

Rain.

Rain cold and trickling down his neck. Fingers shook as he touched his throat. No mark. No scar. No burn. No blade.

“Face me, fiend.”

Crowley recoiled. No. Not Aziraphale. Not _his_ Aziraphle. Just Hell playing their bastard games. Just hell, nothing more. Didn’t turn, just ran. Ran and didn’t look back. Everything turned bright behind him, angel’s wrath lighting the horizon. Felt it licking at him, burning up his spine–

Stumbled, tripped.

Ducks?

He whipped around.

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit

Noah’s zoo. Up there. That meant–

Felt like someone smacked into his back, but the pain bloomed at his front. Looked down, cloth tenting around the tip of a blade. A small, shrill sound hitched on his tongue, hands trembling around it. Blood didn’t show. Not on black.

“I have you this time,” came the breath in his ear, a never-cruel hand tightening on his shoulder.

“Don’t–” he began, then screamed as the blade twisted and pulled free and he dropped

To his knees before three crosses. Metal and bone and blood and pain.

And a fist twisted hair and veil all, wrenching him back.

Not Aziraphale, he told himself. Not even when the face smiled and eyes crinkled. Not when he put a knife to Crowley’s throat, smooth as hot steel through butter, and pulled and

“Jug of house brown.”

Breathing hard he stared at her. The girl. The tavern. An echo, but wrong. And that meant…

He snatched the jar from her, whipping around and bringing the jar down hard on the approaching angel’s head, smashing it to splinters.

“Oh!” Aziraphale staggered and Crowley bolted.

Run and catch, in and out of their history, over and over. Fingers at his throat, facedown in a barrel, set alight. Divorced, beheaded, died, he thought hysterically as the angel stalked him like a shadow through the court of Henry VIII.

Still in the room. Had to be. Had to be. That was reality. All he had to do was find the door, get out and he’d be free. Back to the city. See if the angel’d finished the box of chocolates yet. Probably. Blessed glutton that he could be.

Didn’t know how long he ran. Didn’t know how far how fast how bloody until he sank down in the dark, gasping and retching. No sound around him, not anywhere. Still and quiet and… and distant screams. Screams beyond a wall. Beyond a door.

On his hands and knees he followed, groping blindly.

The bright panel appeared in front of him without warning, blinding. He shrank, small and dazzled.

“Crowley?”

Almost sobbed, almost laughed. “Angel?”

Aziraphale, haloed in light, sword in hand. Smiling. Right. Offering a hand. “I’m here, my dear. Let’s get you out of here.”

Angel took him. Led him out. Over bodies. Over whimpering and bleeding demons. Angel smiled, kicking them when they were down. Didn’t seem like him but then, didn’t see him in hell often. And his hands were gentle on Crowley. All that mattered.

Angel led the way, back into daylight and the reek and hum of the city. “I have you now, dear. I won’t let you go. I’ll kill anyone who comes after us.”

Barefoot and bleeding, Crowley nodded. Wrong, some part of him screamed, but he didn’t need to run. He didn’t have a blade in his ribs. Just… rest. Rest for a moment. Safe. Sheltered. And if Aziraphale’s grip on him was a little too hard, a little too painful, he didn’t say. Not a word.

___________________________

“How long has he been in there?” Dagon’s voice slipped out of the darkness like a fish.

Beelzebub’s smile was a cracked and dark thing. “Almost long enough.”

Grey and silver scales flickered alongside them. “Do you know what he sees?”

“No.” The Prince touched the tip of their staff. “But our master knows his art. He knows how to make anyone hurt.”


End file.
